Professor Geoffrey Gadd, from the University of Dundee in Scotland, said an organism was found in a rare red bread mould, which can be turned into manganese oxide, which has electro-chemical properties.

And he said it definitely worked.

"A lot of the other things that have been tried with manganese oxide of being a-biotic materials, or maybe some other kinds of stuff," Professor Gadd said.

"But this is the first time anyone's used it in a fungal material."

Professor Gadd said he had already been able to charge an LED device, with encouraging results.

"When we put it into lithium ion batteries, for example, they only lost about 10 per cent of their charge stability after about 200 recharge cycles."

With work, scientists hope to be able to increase the size of the batteries the mould mixture can charge.

Professor Gadd said the experiment was all part of the search for renewable energies.

"Also to provide some fundamental understanding of what the organism is capable of ... most of our work is really on what organisms do to metals and minerals and this was a bit of an off-shoot really, a crazy idea; to use this type of mineral and make a manganese oxide," he said.

"So, it was a complete digression for us, but we were very pleased and surprised to see it's worked so well."

People taking green power into their own hands

Paul Graham, chief economist with the CSIRO, said he expected "quirky scientific finds", such as this one, would become more frequent in the energy sector.

"I think we'll see a lot of activity in this space. What's driving that of course is we've had quite an increase in electricity prices and with solar coming along, it's got a lot of people thinking about what can they do themselves?" he said.

Mr Graham said that increased consumer interest was also expected to help drive down energy costs in coming years.

"I think there were just a lot of people who wanted to move to green power because the government might have been dragging its feet, then there's a whole group of people who just want to save money on their bills as power prices go up," he said.

"And I think we've also just got a group of customers who are the fast adapters, who just like to get involved in new technology.

"So I think there's a lot of different motivations, but it's all helping to drive down the cost of this stuff for the average person."

Recharging devices at home from mould 'totally possible'

Professor Gadd said the day could come when it would be possible for anyone to develop sustainable energy at home, with a little bit of help from some mouldy bread.

"Well, a lot of people make their own wine and beer for example, and there's not much difference," he said.

"In theory, people could do this kind of thing at home if they wanted to."

Mr Graham said that was a possibility, citing the fact that nobody expected solar to take off the way it had.

"Solar really was going nowhere for around 30 years," Mr Graham said.

"Then all of a sudden, it's just exploded and so I think when we look at technologies, we sort of look at things and go 'well, maybe that will never go anywhere'.

"But I think what's happened in the solar market, all of us are looking at all technologies now and wondering 'when's their tipping point?'

"So I really never write anything off anymore, because the whole energy sector's been shocked by the technological change that's happening and maybe mould could be the future."